Spectrum Scale Expert Talks

Episode 1:

What is new in
Spectrum Scale 5.0.5?

Show notes: Join our conversation:

www.spectrumscaleug.org/experttalks www.spectrumscaleug.org/join
 SSUG::Digital

Welcome to digital
events!

Show notes: Join our conversation:

www.spectrumscaleug.org/experttalks www.spectrumscaleug.org/join
 About the user group
• Independent, work with IBM to develop events
• Not a replacement for PMR!
• Email and Slack community
• www.spectrumscaleug.org/join

#SSUG
 We are …
• Simon Thompson (UK)
• Kristy Kallback-Rose (USA)
• Bob Oesterlin (USA)
• Bill Anderson (USA)
• Chris Schipalius (Australia)

#SSUG
Check https://www.spectrumscaleug.org
for upcoming talks
 Spectrum Scale Expert Talks
Episode 1:

What is new in
Spectrum Scale 5.0.5?

Show notes: Join our conversation:

www.spectrumscaleug.org/experttalks www.spectrumscaleug.org/join
IBM Spectrum Scale
Release Update 5.0.5

Mathias Dietz
Spectrum Scale Architect

Chris Maestas
Executive Architect

Ismael Solis
Spectrum Scale Performance Analyst
Disclaimer

IBM's statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice
at IBM's sole discretion. Information regarding potential future products is intended to outline our general
product direction and it should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. The information mentioned
regarding potential future products is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material,
code, or functionality. The development, release, and timing of any future features or functionality described for
our products remains at our sole discretion.
IBM reserves the right to change product specifications and offerings at any time without notice. This
publication could include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. References herein to IBM products
and services do not imply that IBM intends to make them available in all countries.

Spectrum Scale Expert Talks: <topic>

Spectrum Scale Early Programs

Customer Success Talk to your IBM contact or Partner to be nominated!

❑ Evaluate new IBM HW or SW in your

environment.
❑ Validate procedures and interoperability with
other products in your enterprise.
❑ Opportunity to Influence Product Design
❑ Early Enablement and education
❑ Strengthen Partnership with IBM
Spectrum Scale Developer
Edition! Fully functional!
– Derived from Data Management Edition (DME)

– Limited to 12 TBs:
enough for a small test cluster

– Available from the Scale ”try and buy” page on

ibm.com

Free for non-production use, e.g. test,

learning, upgrade prep…
– If you have to ask, it’s probably not permitted

Not formally supported

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Spectrum Scale on GitHub!
https://github.com/IBM/SpectrumScaleTools

Find open source tools that are

related with IBM Spectrum Scale.

Unless stated otherwise, the tools

compiled in this list come with no
warranty of any kind from IBM.

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Check out the FAQ!
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/STXKQY/gpfsclustersfaq.html
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/STXKQY/gpfsclustersfaq.pdf?view=kc

HTML or PDF

Spectrum Scale version

compatibility with OS or
kernels

Updated regularly!
IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Spectrum Scale 5.0.5

Extended Update Support (EUS) Release

Feature Updates

Changes, Deprecation …

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
An Extended Update Support (EUS) release
Simplifies ownership of Spectrum Scale
Scale V4.2.3 “incidentally” became an EUS-like release
– As the last Mod pack for the 4.2 release, 4.2.3 continues to receive PTFs, so it’s a
lot like an EUS release

– We allowed the 4.2.x release stream to stay supported for a very long time, partly
because it is the last release to support older Linux distros

– However, until we announced End of Service (EOS), nobody knew for sure how
long that would last, which is not good for planning

This time, we are doing EUS officially with V5.0.5

– You can remain current on security and other fixes without the expense of
functional upgrades

– You can choose to take advantage of Versions and Releases while skipping Mod
packs

– You will know even before GA how long to expect support and can plan
accordingly
IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Sidebar: Release nomenclature at IBM
IBM identifies software by V.R.M.F
– V = Version number (“5.0.0.0”) For details, see: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/vrmf-
maintenance-stream-delivery-vehicle-terminology-explanation
• Indicates a separate IBM licensed program that usually has
significant new code or new function
• Typically has new Part Numbers
• Major feature changes
– R = Release number (“5.1.0.0”)
• Minor feature changes
– M = Mod level (“5.0.4.0”)
• Can include new functionality
• Can include OS currency updates
• Typically twice a year for Scale
– F = Fix pack, commonly known as PTF (“5.0.4.1”)
• Security and functional fixes
• Cumulative
• No new functionality
IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Releases and the support lifecycle at IBM
Support life is determined by V.R numbers and the “3+2” support lifecycle

– Each Version or Release of Scale is supported for at least three years from the GA date. A
change to the V or R digit starts a new clock

– A new Mod level or Fix pack does not start a new clock

– After EOS, IBM may offer “extended support” for up to two years. This does not include PTFs

Typical Scale release cadence

– New Version or Release every 3 – 5 years

– New Mod level six months (5.0.1, 5.0.2, 5.0.3, 5.0.4, 5.0.5)

– PTFs delivered ~6 to 8 weeks apart

What is supported?

– All Mod levels of a currently active release remain supported, i.e. you can call IBM for help

– PTFs are provided ONLY for the most current Mod level of each supported release

• Currently 4.2.3 and 5.0.5

– This will be important later!

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
An Extended Update release simplifies ownership

An extended update support release allows customers

to receive a fix stream without taking new features

– Security and other fixes continue even after the next release

– On Linux distros, known as EUS (Extended Update Support)

Compare the predictable RHEL plan
or LTS (Long Term Support)

– Eliminates need for extensive re-testing in order to stay

secure

– Allows better dependency management both upstream (OS)

and downstream (apps such as SAP or Oracle)

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Every third release has extended updates
with additional 18 months of PTFs
Scale Support lifetimes
5.NN.3
5.NN.2
5.NN.1
5.NN.0
5.N.5
5.N.4
5.N EOS
5.N.3
5.N.2
5.N.1
5.N.0
5.0.5
5.0.4 5.0 EOS
4.2.3

Jan-20 Jul-20 Dec-20 Jun-21 Dec-21 Jun-22 Dec-22 Jun-23 Dec-23 Jun-24 Dec-24 Jun-25 Dec-25 Jun-26 Nov-26 May-27 Nov-27

Support status PTFs EUS with PTFs Ext Support (no PTFs)

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Scale EUS and RHEL EUS Alignment
Scale release Planned 7.x* 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.4 8.6 8.8 9.x?
date
5.0.4 4Q2019
5.0.5 EUS 2Q2020
5.N.0 4Q2020
5.N.1 2Q2021
5.N.2 EUS 4Q2021
5.N.3 2Q2022
5.N.4 4Q2022
5.N.5 EUS 2Q2023
5.NN.0 4Q2023
5.NN.1 2Q2024

*See Knowledge Center for details of RHEL7 support. Subject to changes to Red Hat release plans beyond RHEL7.8

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Executive Summary
New Scale Version or Release every three years or more
(as today)

Mod packs ~every six months (as today)

Extended Update release every 18 months

– i.e. every third Mod pack comes with EUS

Customers can get a PTF stream…

– Either by staying with the Extended Update release

– Or (as today) by moving with each Mod pack

5.0.5 will be our first planned Extended Update release

– Will release six months before 4.2.3 goes EOS to allow for
managed migration

– Will also be the last 5.0.x and eligible for Extended support

Subsequent Extended Update releases will overlap by six

months to support managed migration

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Core Improvements

Monitoring, Availability and

Proactive Services (MAPS)

Protocols

Security

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Core Improvements
TRIM support for NVMe devices
– NSD configuration and the new mmreclaimspace command to enable TRIM
support, which reduces write amplification on solid-state devices under certain
workloads

Thin provisioning support (RPQ only)

– Add the ability to use thinly provisioned and compressed volumes for both file
system data and metadata

– Contact your sales or account team (RPQ / SCORE process) for assessment
on the use of thin provisioning

The following features are added to thin provisioning:

o Online disk type change for space reclaim
o Autodetection on space reclaimable disk
o Methods to reclaim space

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Core Improvements
RHEL 7.8/8.1 support

Windows Server 2019 NSD Server and NSD Client

support

Support cp --preserve=xattr
– E.g. for migrating into a 5.x "variable subblock" file
system
– POSIX and NFSv4 ACLs are copied.

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Core Improvements
Install / Upgrade toolkit
– Better handling short vs FQDN hostnames during
install / upgrade
– ECE Rolling Upgrade from 5.0.4.3 to 5.0.5

Spectrum Scale on Z
– CES with NFS and SMB are RPQ only supported
– CES GUI, Health, Performance Monitors
– mmuserauth authentication setup

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Core Improvements

mmchconfig has minIndBlkDescs attribute

– ensure that more indirect block descriptors are cached in memory.
Increasing the value of this attribute can improve the performance of
some applications that do direct I/O.

mmchconfig has maxReceiverThreads

– can improve TCP performance by reducing the number of sockets that
each receiver thread must handle.

mmchattr --compact has suboptions indblk and

fragment
– increase available disk space by recovering unused indirect blocks or
data subblocks from files.

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Core Improvements
mmcheckquota improved performance
– Fix slow down in while traversing very large sparse inode zero file
– Improvement for certain FSs with several independent filesets

Improve mmrestripefs performance

– Better self-tuning on the number of threads for ESSs

Speed up "ls -l" on a large directory with

lots of fileset junctions
– Less time spent on lookups

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Core Improvements

Eliminate zero link count inodes in snapshots

– E.g. avoid moving unnecessary blocks when snapshot is deleted

Add a configuration option that will establish all-to-all

daemon connections after mmfsd starts

Performance is improved for mmap read workloads

when multiple threads read the same file.

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
MAPS: Health Improvements

Detect OOM killer runs

– Detect if Linux Out of memory killer has run and warn about it
– New command “mmhealth event resolve” to manually clear OOM event

NumaMemoryInterleave enabled but dependencies missing

– Numactl command required to control NUMA settings

NFS Monitoring improvements

– NFS Monitoring RPC Nullcheck behavior improved
– Prevent NFS from starting up when remote mount is not available

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
MAPS: Performance Monitoring
Top-k Performance Sensor
– Collect the Top 10 processes (by CPU Usage) and provide a reporting with CPU/Memory
– New command “mmperfmon report”

Improve Network sensor for Docker

– allow customer filters to filter out virtual temporary docker interfaces
– Use “mmperfmon config” command to modify the filter

Performance Threshold Improvements

– New measurement MemoryAvailable_percent
– Default threshold rules deactivated if the corresponding sensor is not configured
IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
MAPS: Call Home Improvements

Show Configuration changes between two call home uploads

– New command “mmcallhome status diff”

Enforce config options like customer name, customer ID.

– Show health tip if missing

And more….
– sudo wrapper support, Test connection of ungrouped nodes, add/del nodes from group

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
MAPS: GUI Improvements

Support for Watch Folders:

Display NVMe information for physical Disks that are NVMes (for ESS and ECE)

Configure overlapping ID ranges for AD + RFC2307

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Protocols: SMB
Added the best practices for using SMB to the Knowledge Center.

Recovery lock: The SMB clustering component now uses a global file lock to maintain cluster
integrity.

File handles for Mac clients: The SMB service returns file handles built upon the GPFS inode
number, generation number, and snapshot number to Mac clients instead of just 0.

Error messages and trouble shooting procedures have been improved for SMB share modes.

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Protocols: NFS-Ganesha V2.7.5-ibm057.00
Use the ganesha_stats command to enable, disable, or retrieve these statistics.

• client_io_ops - READ, WRITE of all supported NFS protocols (NFSv3, NFSv4.0)

exerted by the NFS client (client IP address).
• Understand I/O workload exerted by a specific NFS client.
• client_all_ops - NFSv3, NLM, NFSv4.0. Disabled by default.
• Understand all workload exerted by the NFS client.

DNS-related stats can be captured as a part of the authentication statistics collection.

Various improvements in metadata caching module (MDCACHE), which includes the

directory listing area.

Prevent NFS from starting up when remote mount is not available.

NFS Monitoring RPC Nullcheck behavior improved.

System health monitor sends NFSv3 / NFSv4 NULL requests to check if Ganesha is active.

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Protocols: Containers
Container Storage Interface (CSI) version 1.1

Allow a Spectrum Scale file system to surface into a

pod/container running inside OpenShift 4.3
https://github.com/IBM/ibm-spectrum-scale-csi-driver

Upgraded sidecar images CSI 1.1

– csi-attacher: v2.1.1
– csi-provisioner: v1.5.0
– csi-node-driver-registrar:v1.2.0

Improvements in the debug data collection tool

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Protocols: HDFS Transparency 3.1.1
Ingest
Analysis
Integrates with CES protocol and IBM Spectrum Scale
installation toolkit for NameNode service Raw
Data

Supports Open Source Apache Hadoop distribution and

Direct Access
RedHat Enterprise Linux operating systems.
gpfs.snap --hadoop to collect logs File Object

POSIX

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Cloudera and Spectrum Scale We are working on something … ;-)

https://tinyurl.com/ycdwcgte
WEBINAR

https://www.ibm.com/analytics/ Meeting the New Intelligent Data Economy Head On

partners/cloudera Adopting cloud-native, highly scalable, and AI-driven

data storage practices on-premise

June 25, 2020 10:00am EST | 3:00pm BST

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Active File Management (AFM)
Support dependent filesets inside an AFM or AFM-DR fileset.
Increase number of threads for prefetch operation:
– # mmafmctl <fs> prefetch -j <fileset> --list-file <listfile_path> --
prefetch-threads 6

Migration enhancements for AFM data migration.

– Set the afmReadDirOnce and afmRefreshOnce parameters of AFM to improve
performance during the data migration procedure.

Support of fast create for AFM and AFM-DR.

– Fast create reduces the number of operations that are generated at the time of file
creation at the cache.
– E.g. for applications which are generating a lots of files ex. tar, git, make etc.

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Security
TLS 1.3 Support
– Spectrum Scale GUI & REST API

Encryption
– File encryption now supports SKLM 4.0 as a Remote Key Management (RKM) server.
– Qualification of Thales DSM 6.3
– Renew expired client certificates without recreating a new client

RPM Package signing support for installation & upgrade

Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) enforcing mode is supported.

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
File Audit Logging (FAL) and
Watch Folders
Watch Folders (mmwatch)
– Support for sending events to a secondary sink when a watch is suspended

Audit logging on fileset level

– With fileset file audit logging, you can specify a list of filesets to enable or skip from a file system.

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Changed
Command Summary of Changes
mmafmconfig Parameter Show added. It displays all the existing maps. Each map displays the mapping of a gateway
node and home NFS server pair that is separated by a comma ','.
mmafmctl Various changes to “mmafmctl Device prefetch”. This option is used for pre-fetching file contents from
home before the application requests for the contents. This reduces the network delay when the
application performs data transfers on file and data that is not in cache.
mmaudit Using --compliant option is possible to specify that the file audit logging fileset that is created to hold the
file audit logging files will be IAM mode compliant. It is also possible to indicate a list of filesets within the
filesystem to audit or skip filesets by using the options –filesets and –skip-filesets respectively.
mmchconfig It allows to change the value of new file system attributes including: maxReceiverThreads,
minIndBlkDescs and nsdRAIDBufferPoolSizePct.
mmchfileset It allows to change the value of new fileset attributes to configure AFM including: afmFastCreate,
afmReadDirOnce and afmRefreshOnce.
mmkeyserv --update attribute has been added to replace an expired or unexpired client certificate with a new one in
the specified key client.
mmwatch --upgrade parameter has been added to converts all active clustered watches to use the IBM Spectrum
Scale system health infrastructure. During the conversion process, conduits are disabled and then re-
enabled.
spectrumscale --workload parameter added to set the installation toolkit to prompt users to shut down their workloads
before an upgrade. The setup type must be ece for using this option. | 44
Deprecated

Category Deprecated Functionality Recommended Action

Security The use of TLS 1.0 and 1.1 for authorization Upgrade to TLS 1.2 or later
with the GUI/REST API server
GUI/REST API The use of TLS 1.0 and 1.1 for authorization Upgrade to TLS 1.2 or later
with the GUI/REST API server
Cloud Storage Enabler for Containers (SEC) Adopt the CSI driver. Note that we plan to
discontinue support for SEC in the next
release.
Platforms Encryption acceleration library for Power7 If encryption performance is critical, plan to
(CliC) migrate to newer generations of Power
systems. Note that we plan to discontinue
support for CliC in the next release.
Platforms Support for Power7 Plan to migrate to newer generations of
Power systems.

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation | 45
Discontinued

Category Discontinued Functionality Recommended Action

HDFS Transparency Support for IBM BigInsights for Apache IBM BigInsights for Apache Hadoop is no
Hadoop longer supported by IBM. Consequently, IBM
Spectrum Scale no longer supports the use
of BigInsights as a Hadoop connection.
Platforms Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Upgrade to a supported version of Windows.

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation | 46
Log your RFE!
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rfe/execute?use_case=productsList

IBM Spectrum Scale / Spectrum Scale User Group – What’s new with 5.0.5 / © 2020 IBM Corporation
Thank you!
Please help us to improve Spectrum Scale with your feedback
• If you get a survey in email or a popup from the GUI,
please respond
Spectrum Scale
• We read every single reply
User Group

The Spectrum Scale (GPFS) User Group is

free to join and open to all using, interested in
using or integrating IBM Spectrum Scale.

The format of the group is as a web

community with events held during the year,
hosted by our members or by IBM.

See our web page for upcoming events and

presentations of past events. Join our
conversation via mail and Slack.

www.spectrumscaleug.org